Blog 5

•  My first experience with Twitter were in 5th grade. I had really wanted to get into social media at the time and that was one of the bigger platforms then. I would tweet nonsense as you would expect a 5th grader to do but, fortunately, I have deleted all those tweets since then. I mostly interacted with family members that were on there as well and followed the celebrities that I looked up to and was interested in. Looking back, I do believe that it was beneficial in a way because I had an outlet where I could post my thoughts at a young age and it didn't negatively affect me because I was a small account that many people did not notice. It helped me become more comfortable with the internet and social media. In my future career I can use Twitter to connect with administrators, students and also be able to share out via Twitter any useful information or people to follow based on my curriculum. 

• The digital divide affects students in schools today because often now everything is in a virtual format and students who are not in a position to have access to technology suffer because of it. When they leave high school, they go into colleges or work forces that will most likely expect them to be well versed in using technology and its tools. Some causes are the lack of funding to schools in a lower-income neighborhood. Governments often overlook these factors that every student might not be able to access internet or technology. As a classroom teacher, I may experience teaching a class with a few students who don't have access to internet at home. In this case, I would always make sure to provided proper class time to finish any assignments that require internet and leave ample time after class for students to come and work in my class. I would also try to create a physical format of whatever homework I assign for those students to do at home and not worry about not having internet. 

• The first software tool I would implement in my classroom is OneNote. I think that it is a great way to keep organized notes where I could access what my students are writing down and easily share info and worksheets without any paper waste. OneNote allows for note taking in an online format and includes many note taking resources such as copy and pasting work and sharing notes with other classmates. The other tool I would use is Audacity. This is an audio recording tool that allows users to record their voice and edit the sound. I have used this in my previous English classes to record my essay readings. This is a great tool for students who may be too shy to publicly speak or even to post the recording to another site or share it out.